


These Things We Carry

by Linguini



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Major Vehicle Injury, Whump, she doesn't deserve this, the poor Jag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7379353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguini/pseuds/Linguini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a rainy morning in late autumn, a black Jag and its three passengers end up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere.  It is something less than good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The third time Morse falls asleep at the wheel and nearly hydroplanes the Jag, Thursday has him pull over, pointing a gruff finger at Jakes before he can say a word. 

“Not with that wrist,” he tells the sergeant, and slides out of the passenger seat, prodding Morse into the back. When Morse is settled, he says “Kip a bit, both of you. We won’t be there before first light,” and turns back to the road.

It’s slow going, with the rain sluicing down from the heavens, puddles spreading across the road and threatening to sweep away unwary drivers. By the time they make it out to the stately home, the first tendrils of dawn are just beginning to glimmer through the misty woods, bringing with them the damp stillness of a late-autumn morning. Thursday pulls into the drive and sets the parking brake, turning to look back at Jakes and Morse.

“We’re here,” he says, sounding suddenly loud after the hours of quiet in the close quarters. He sets out for the door without waiting for them.

True to form, they catch up before he’s even at the stairs, without an inch of sleepiness between them. Not that it matters, when the door stays firmly shut and there isn’t even a flicker of lamplight in the windows. It’s Jakes who notices the muddy tire tracks, and Morse that the house is unlocked. A quick search only confirms what Thursday already suspected--the Wright-Forresters have left in a hurry, and apparently don’t intend to be coming back.

It’s the ignoble (if not unexpected) end to a long and frustrating case, and Thursday steps away as Jakes makes some rude sound and lights up a cigarette as he stands protected in the doorway. Morse is, predictably, prowling around under the windows, ignoring the rain slicking down his hair and trailing in rivulets down his face.

“Morse,” Thursday chides. “Come out of the rain. ‘s nought to be found skulking around there. We need to go back, stop them at the train.” He stalks back to the car, and listens for the squelch of shoes behind him.

Staying true to the course of the previous three weeks, the car phone has very little signal, and nothing he manages to get from the nick is intelligible. Thursday squeezes a growl between his back teeth and starts the car again, heading back to Cowley.

It seems impossible, but it starts to rain harder, drumming against the roof of the Jag. Morse and Jakes are stiff-backed and silent in their seats, making the atmosphere muggy from more than just the heating. More than once, Thursday has to remind himself to unclench his hands from around the steering wheel as he carefully navigates the nearly-flooded back roads.

“Jakes,” he says after a long while. “Try Cowley again.”

He’s leaning forward as they turn the corner, and truthfully Thursday is paying more attention to him than he is to navigating, so that when the truck that comes around the corner is square in the middle of the road to avoid the soft verges, he’s forced to overcorrect sharply. The car swerves, first one way, then the other, and Thursday loses control in the blink of an eye. One arm reaches out automatically to snag Jakes’s jacket, keeping him relatively in place. But the car tilts sharply, heading over an embankment and into wetland, and Thursday feels something in his arm give, a white hot bolt of pain. He jerks the wheel to one side, avoiding a collision with a large oak, and then there’s nothing to do but watch. A fence looms into view, but before he can do anything about it, his head cracks against the windscreen and the world drops sickeningly into black.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing that registers when he wakes up is the drip of something wet on his face, then the smell of petrol, and muffled warbling. Thursday blinks reluctant eyes open, frowning when nothing comes into focus. He must make some sort of sound, because there are twin blurs of red and black that swoop into his vision.

More muffled sounds that coalesce into “Sir?” and “Guv?” at various pitches. He blinks again, and the faces of Morse and Jakes sharpen into focus.

“Sir,” Jakes says, and Thursday feels pressure at his shoulder. “Don’t move yet.” He looks pale and wan, creases in his face, hair plastered to his forehead.

Thursday makes a grunt of dismissal and forces himself up, wincing as his head throbs mercilessly and his vision crosses. He manages to swallow back the urge to vomit, closing his eyes instead. A moment to settle, then, “Th’ truck?”

“Long gone,” Morse says from behind him, voice thick with disgust. “Didn’t even slow down.”

Thursday nods, which turns out to be a mistake as the world swims alarmingly around him again. “Alright?” he asks, opening his eyes again and looking Jakes over carefully. His sergeant is holding his arm close to his chest, and looks a bit shaken, but otherwise seems fine. The nod he gives Thursday is firm and assuring, though, so he makes no comment.

“Morse?” he asks, turning to look behind him. There’s a sharp stabbing in his side, and everything goes white for a moment. _Broken ribs_ , he thinks, in a voice that sounds startlingly like Win. Carefully, he shifts, evaluating as he tries to settle his breathing into something less than the knife blade currently settled in his lungs. _Concussion. Broken arm._ Fixing labels to his injuries allows him to box them up, to push them to the back of his mind.

Through the ringing in his ears, he hears Morse’s voice. “Fine, sir.” When he appears in view, it seems that he’s telling the truth for once. With the exception of the bruise spreading from his cheekbone, there’s nought wrong with him.

Carefully, Thursday shifts again, and forces himself to look at the scene around them. The Jag has ended with her nose deep in some mud, and one of the tires is pointing at an angle entirely unconducive to driving. Rain patters down from the branches above, and drips on the leather seats through a hole in the windscreen the size of Thursday’s fist. There’s no hope of staying--not with the rain bucketing it down like this and a forecast for near-freezing temperatures all day. He only barely manages not to sigh. “Alright, then,” he says, forcing himself up by using the branches and no little bit of assistance from Morse. “Shoe leather express it is, then.”

When he gets blank stares, just gestures towards the road. “Up. Onwards. Go.”

The look that passes between Morse and Jakes isn’t lost on him, but he ignores their concern and forces himself up the small embankment. But the time he’s made it, he’s panting heavily, each breath sending a sharp dagger through his chest. Weakly, he waves a hand up the road. “G’on,” he gasps. “I’ll follow.”

“Sorry, sir,” Morse says, and bends to the road. “Just need to tie my shoe a bit.”

Jakes cottons on quickly and digs in his pocket for his cigarettes, leaning against a nearby post to rest a moment. When it seems Thursday is a bit more steady on his feet, they trudge on, silently huddled in their coats.

Thursday finds himself watching the ground, feeling long-familiar rhythms from days of marching in ever-shifting sand, through Tunisia to Italy and beyond. One foot in front of the other, repeat as necessary. If you can move your feet, you’re still alive. Everything else is details.

Eventually, even breathing becomes a chore. He’s walking so slowly that Morse and Jakes are passing looks behind his back. But he carries on, doggedly determined to make it back to the station, to do his duty. 

They walk for what seems an eternity before Morse sees a small brick pillbox just off the side of the road, and suggests they wait in there. Jakes agrees immediately, but Thursday barely responds, gaze fixed firmly on Morse’s back. He follows where his bagman leads, which is a blessing as almost immediately upon stepping into the cramped space, his eyes roll back in his head and he collapses into Morse’s arms.

Jakes curses as between them they break their boss’s fall, and again when his hands come away from his side sticky-slick. Without much heed to propriety or neatness, he shifts aside Thursday’s suit, frowning at the growing stain even as his hands automatically go to staunch the flow of blood. “Morse,” he grits out around the pain of pressing his broken wrist down, not that it causes him to put any less than his full weight on it.. “You’ve got to go for help.” 

When the constable looks like he’s about to argue, Jakes growls, “Go! Now! We don’t have time to discuss it!” Another blink of wide, startled blue eyes, and Morse is gone.

Silence falls in the tiny huddle, broken only by the sound of Thursday’s wheezing breaths and the incessant hammering of rain on the roof. “Sir?” he asks quietly, shifting a bit when Thursday painfully hitches an inhale. “Sir. Can you wake up? It’s me, Jakes.”

But Thursday stays stubbornly silent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Lothiriel for the Italian translations. Any mistakes are the result of my not listening.

Time creeps by.  

Jakes measures it in the rattling breaths Thursday takes, in the thudding of his own pulse in his wrist, now swollen enough he’s had to unbutton his cuff and fashion a sling out of his necktie.  “Sir?” he asks for what feels like the hundredth time, shifting on his knees to lean a bit further over Thursday’s side and reach for his carotid.  He’s lost count of how many times he’s checked.  Each time, he finds the same rabbit-quick beat, feels the vibration of every indrawn breath, watches the dark purple bruise on Thursday’s temple spread to his cheek.  

His thoughts are pulled away from his counting when he notices rivulets of pink on Thursday’s neck, and for a moment he fears that he’s missed some injury.  But he hasn’t--it’s only the inspector’s own blood transferred from Jake’s fingers.  He forces himself to breathe in, out, in, to keep time with the rise and fall of Thursday’s chest.  Forces his blood cool.  Forces the fear down.

And then, finally,  _ blessedly _ , movement.  Thursday’s eyelashes flutter open, dark pools of pain and confusion looking up at his sergeant.  

“Sir?” Jakes says, sitting up on his knees and pressing his good hand to his superior’s shoulder to keep him still.  “Don’t move yet.”   
  
There’s not a hint of recognition in Thursday’s eyes as he looks up, only a sense of a hair-poised descent into panic that chills the blood in Jakes’s veins.  He’s never before seen Thursday anything other than in control of himself and his surroundings.  He’s the father figure of the station, their lodestone, and to have him now sprawled out on the ground, breath quickening and muscles tensing in preparation for…  For  _ what _ ?  To flee?  To fight?  Jakes doesn’t know.

What he  _ does  _ know, with utter, steadfast certainty, is that Thursday’s in no shape for either.  He takes a deep breath and shifts his weight, settling even more of it on Thursday’s shoulder.  “Don’t move,” he cautions.  “You’re badly hurt.”

Thursday mumbles something, eyes slipping shut, head thrashing weakly on the makeshift pillow Jakes fashioned out of his own coat, obviously fighting to stay awake, but none of it makes any sense to Jakes.   _ “Le ragazze, Lupo. 'Cesca. Perché rossa?” _

“Sir,” he says, then again, more forcefully.  “You have to stay awake.”   
  
With a growl, Thursday reaches up and swipes weakly at Jakes’s hand.   “ _ Vaffanculo, Lupo.  Lasciami andare. Devo andare da loro. _ ”   He wriggles a bit, but only manages to leave himself gasping for air.   “ _ Lasciami andare _ ,”  he wheezes.   “ _ Luisa!  Non lasciarmi _ .”

Jakes frowns, but only sets himself more firmly.  He’s not sure what language that is, but it’s  _ definitely  _ not English.  “Inspector Thursday,” he says slowly.  “Do you know where you are?”

Thursday doesn’t answer--or if he does, it’s not in anything Jakes can understand.  Instead, he shifts on the ground uncomfortably and has a slurred one-sided conversation with the shadows on the wall.  It’s disconcerting, this, and Jakes feels the knot of despair beneath his breastbone grow.  

He doesn’t get much time to process it before he hears the sound of a car approaching, barely discernable over the rolling thunder.  “Christ, finally,” he mutters and forces himself to his feet.  “Morse,” he calls, stepping out into the pouring rain.  “The hell took you so long?”  He looks down the road, then pauses when he sees it’s a tractor, with no sign of Morse.  

He’s caught by a rare moment of indecision:  To wait there for Morse to return or get Inspector Thursday help more quickly.  The sound of Thursday’s mumbling turning to shouts inside makes his mind up for him, and Jakes starts the slog up the embankment as quickly as he can.

His hair is dripping into his eyes, every inch of him soaked through.  The mud clings to his shoes, and he falls more than once, making frustratingly little progress with one hand in a sling.  A particularly vicious bramble catches his foot as he scrambles up, and he lands with a thud on his broken wrist.  The pain of it sends his vision white, sets off a buzzing in his ears that he knows from long experience is the precursor to passing out.

Curling around himself, Jakes shouts in pain and frustration, feeling tears prick at the corners of his eyes.   _ It’s coming _ , he thinks viciously.   _ Get off your fucking arse and  _ **_move_ ** _. _  With an enormous effort, he makes his wobbling way back up, wincing when his ankle now feels tender and sore, throbbing in time to the pain in his wrist, at his temple.  _ Get up get up get up _ .

It’s for naught, though, as the tractor trundles by before he’s even halfway up the slope, driver blissfully unaware of the bedraggled, exhausted Jakes.  With a frustrated growl, he lets himself fall to his knees one last time, swiping uselessly at the water streaming down his face and stuffing down the urge to break something in frustration.  

The break is cut short by the sound of Thursday retching in the shelter below.  Jakes turns and crashes heedlessly back through the thicket, dropping unceremoniously where Thursday is turned on his side, heaving and spitting out something black and foul-smelling.  “Sir?” he asks, and winces at the high note of panic.  Deliberately slowly, he takes a breath and forces his voice even.  

“Sir,” he says again.  “It’s alright.”  Even as he says it, the futility of the gesture grates on him.  In reality, there’s nothing he can do but keep Thursday calm and relatively warm, though with the water seeping in, it’s nigh on impossible. So Jakes does the only thing he can: grit his teeth to wait it out while trying not to think too much about the blood staining his boss’s lips.


	4. Chapter 4

_It’s raining again when he wakes up. Rivulets of water leave trails through the condensation on the window; puddles gather in the corners of the barn. By morning, the blankets are soaked through, even the patches that aren’t threadbare. Lying on the makeshift bed of straw, Fred sighs, feeling the tightness in his lungs gather into a wet, chesty cough that leaves him breathless and vaguely sore._

_There’s a weight on his shoulder, pressing him further into the cold ground. He feels nearly frozen through, except for the warmth along his right side. Something tickles his nose. It smells of pine resin and loamy earth. He is tired. He is wet. He is mercifully not alone._

_A small snuffling and something….some **one** nuzzles closer. He hears “Respira Freddo,” feels her hand rubbing soothingly at his chest, and turns to cough again, spitting out something thick and foul-tasting. It takes him much longer for his lungs to settle, for him to make the droning in his ears turn into intelligible words...even if they still sound as if they’re traveling a long way through water._

_“Alright,” she says, holding him steady. “Alright. Just keep breathing, yeah?” Something about them is off, something that niggles at the back of his mind, just **that much** unusual._

_When he’s finished, she lets him flop back to the floor. Water falls into his eyes, forcing his vision misty. When it clears, Lupo is looking back at him. The barn is gone, replaced with the musty dampness of a cave._

_“Lupo?” he breathes, and then memory assails him. “The girls? Francesca!” He struggles upright, wincing as the world spins. “I saw her, Lupo. The red dress. Where are they?”_

_Lupo only presses his shoulder. “Sono morti, Sergente. Non c'è niente che possiamo fare per loro.”_

_Fred throws his hand off and struggles back up. “The hell there isn’t!” He stands and stumbles from the cave. The world tilts again, blurs at the edges and suddenly he’s there, staring at the white wall, at the body lying in a mess of mud and blood and rain._

_“Christ,” he breathes and drops down, turning over Luisa’s body. “No no no no no. Don’t leave me. Luisa. Don’t go.”_

_But the face that looks up at him isn’t Luisa’s. It’s smaller, softer, hair curling just at the chin._

_He slumps back on his heels, voice sticking in his throat. With trembling hands, he brushes numb fingers over her cheek, then winces when they leave smears of blood behind._

_“Oh, Win” he rasps, and tries to rub them away, succeeding only in adding to the mess on her cold skin. “Forgive me.” His voice cracks with the weight of his grief and he has to turn away._

_Another set of wracking coughs overtakes him, forcing him to curl on his side as he retches and gasps for air. There are hands on his shoulders holding him upright. The smell of cigarette smoke, mud, Brylcreem overtakes the cordite and blood. The white stucco smears into stolid brown brick, rain pounding on the roof._

And then, from the haze, the voice of his sergeant, firm and steady, if more than a little scared. “Alright, sir,” he says. “Morse will be back soon.”

He heaves and retches and spits until there’s nothing left, and then lets himself sag for just a moment. When the world spins violently around him, crashing into darkness, he cannot find the will to fight it off.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s his fourth collar of the day.  One more and he’s broken the station record.  Strange feels a stab of satisfaction as he tosses the pickpocket into the cell, and growls “Wait here, Matey,” at him.  There’s a knot of people at the intake sergeant’s desk, chatting in hushed tones.  

 

As he approaches, Strange hears Morse’s name, and narrows his eyes.  He’s become something of a protector for his fellow constable, but even his reputation doesn’t put a damper on whatever bit of gossip has them so interested.

 

“Hey now,” he says, adopting a friendly mein.  “What’s this about Morse?”

 

Constable Edwards turns to him, and Strange is surprised to see none of the usual jealous disgust on his face.  Instead, there’s only shock mingled with a bit of heavy concern.  “Vehicular.  Him and Jakes and the guv into a ditch, out in Baldon.  They’re at hospital now.  Sergeant’s only broken his wrist, and Morse doesn’t have a scratch on him, but Bill says he saw the old man, and he’s in a bad way.”

 

An icy hand clenches his heart, but he forces his voice even.  “He’ll be fine,” he says with all the assurance he can muster.  “Take more than that to dust off the old man.”  His meaty hand claps Edwards on the shoulder.  “In any case, why don’t you sign us out a car?  They’ll need a ride back.”  Over the younger constable’s shoulder, he looks for permission from the sergeant, who gives him a nod and a dismissive wave of his hand.

 

As they’re heading for the motor pool, DCS Bright is coming up the stairs.

 

“Ah, Strange,” he says.  “Just the man I was looking for.  I’ve just heard about Inspector Thursday and the men.  Acquire a car for us, hmmm?”

 

Strange stands a bit straighter and feels grateful he’s managed to keep a relatively clean uniform all day.  “Already done, sir,” he says, reaching out and taking the keys from Edwards before giving the younger man an imperious look to send him off. 

 

Bright sets his cap on his head and gestures back down the stairs.  “Let’s waste no time, then.”

 

The drive is only slightly awkward.  Strange has chauffered the chief a handful of times, and each trip has gone the same:  Bright sits silently in the front, eyes fixed to the road, and projecting an air that discourages conversation from anyone below the rank of a Baron.  Strange drops him off at the doors to A&E, and then parks the car as close as he can while still being out of the way of arriving ambulances.  When he strides into the A&E reception, the full gravitas of the Cowley station behind him, Bright is nowhere to be seen.

 

“Detective Constable Strange,” he says with a polite but firm smile, knowing his uniform is enough to vouch for his identity.  “I’m here about three of ours?  Inspector Thursday, Sergeant Jakes, Constable Morse?”  

 

The nurse raises her eyebrows, but before she can say anything, a voice calls his name from over his shoulder. 

 

It’s Morse, every inch of him below his neck covered in mud, hair plastered to his forehead where it’s not drying in soft curls.  A bruise spreads across his cheek, nearly to his jaw, and he looks as if the rain has leeched most of the color from him.

 

“Christ, Morse.” Strange grins.  “You don’t half look like you’ve been through the wars, do you?”

 

Morse gives that same small smile that can mean anything from _I’m amused at your joke_ to _I want to punch you in the nose._  He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks a bit on the balls of his feet.  “Superintendent Bright said much the same thing.”

 

Strange has learned from long association that there’s not much more coming after that, so he steps forward.  “You need something warm in you, and a snifter of brandy.  I’ll have a nurse fetch us some tea.  You just sit down there.”  He nods towards the seats in the back of the room.

 

It takes a small eternity to find someone who’s willing to bring them lukewarm tea in paper cups.  It’s weak and sweet, and probably just was Morse needs.  A feeling that’s only reinforced when Strange finds him slouched in a chair in the corner of the waiting room, head tipped back against the wall.  He’s sitting awkwardly, with his hands deep in his pockets and shivering lightly with cold.

 

“Here, Matey,” he says quietly, setting the cups on a windowsill and unbuttoning his tunic, holding it out.  “Until you can get back to yours for something warmer.”  

 

For a moment, Morse blinks in uncharacteristic confusion, then reaches out and takes it with trembling hands, shrugging it on stiffly before flopping back in his seat silently.

 

It’s disconcerting, this dogged blankness, like nothing Strange has ever seen from his friend before, and it sets his teeth on edge.  Morse is clearly chewing things over in his mind, gears spinning over every detail as he usually does.

 

“How are they?” he asks quietly, settling in the next chair and rescuing the tea to hand over.  

 

Morse wraps his hands around the flimsy paper.  “Jakes has a broken wrist,” he says, “And he’s twisted his ankle.  They’re taking x-rays now and then they’ll plaster it.  Should be out soon.”  A pause.  “Thursday….is hurt badly.”

 

Strange nods into his cup.  “How badly?”

 

“They won’t say.”  A sip, and a grimace before he sets it on the floor by his feet.  “Mrs. Thursday has been notified, and she’s headed here.”  

 

There’s nothing Strange can say to that, so he just nods into his own cup and settles in.  They probably won't hear anything for a long while, he knows, but there is nowhere else on Earth he could possibly be.  Not when his co-workers and friends are relying on him.

 

And so the wait begins.


	6. Chapter 6

DCS Bright is not a big man. He is, however, a man who exudes confidence and authority, and when he steps to the front desk and asks where his men are, the nurse tells him without hesitation.

Inspector Thursday’s room being full of medical personnel, DCS Bright heads for the next room along, knocking perfunctorily before entering. A man is lying back on the bed, eyebrows creased in pain or contemplation. His wrist is casted and in a sling, and there’s a bulge under his trouser leg, presumably from the wrapping around his ankle. “Sergeant Jakes,” Bright says, and feels a small sting of guilt when he startles.

“Sir,” he says, and shifts his legs over the side of the bed.

Bright waves an indulgent hand at him. “No, no. Don’t stand for formality’s sake.

But Sergeant Jakes is already on his feet, spine ramrod straight. “No, sir. It’s fine. Just a bit of a scratch.”

The look DCS Bright gives him is mildly approving as he moves to sit in the visitor’s chair, giving Jakes tacit permission to perch back on the edge of the bed. Placidly, he removes his cigarette case from his inner pocket and takes a cigarette before offering one to the sergeant. 

Sergeant Jakes takes it with a murmured thanks and awkwardly digs out his own lighter--a futile gesture as it fails to catch. He frowns and murmurs an apology. “I think it’s waterlogged, sir,” he says.

DCS Bright bestows on him a rare, tight-lipped smile. “As, I would imagine, are you.”

That evidently seems to throw the Sergeant, who blinks owlishly at him for a moment before nodding and turning back to his cigarette. They take a moment each for long drags Bright asks “What do you know of Inspector Thursday?”

A breath, and DCS Bright curses himself as Sergeant Jakes straightens stiffly, losing whatever meagre ease he’d managed to cultivate. “Not much, sir. Broken arm, head wound. Something nasty in his side, bled the whole time.” Sergeant Jakes hesitates, then says quietly, “He didn’t know where he was.” Even the shape of the words in his mouth feel sharp and disloyal. “Stuck in the war, I think.”

DCS Bright nods, taking another long pull before answering. Then, neutrally, “I have been told you acquitted yourself well--that Inspector Thursday owes his life to you and Morse.”

Sergeant Jakes looks away, as if he can see the man in question through the curtains, but says only, “Sir.” It is clear he doesn’t believe a word of it...or, if he does, it’s a hard won assurance.

When his cigarette has burned to the filter, DCS Bright stands, stubbing it out on the windowsill and reaching for his cap. He turns to face the Sergeant and gives what he feels is a reassuring smile. “You have done the station and yourself proud,” he says, tucking the cap under his arm and checking his uniform is straight. “Well done.” 

When Sergeant Jakes only looks blankly at him for a moment before stumbling over a murmured thanks, he gives a brisk nod and strides back out into the hospital to carry on with his duty to his men. He is careful to keep any concerns about Inspector Thursday to himself, lest there grow fear among the ranks--a failure of leadership of the highest magnitude. In their place, he cultivates an air of assured optimism and patient expectation and wishes, not for the first time, that the mantle of command was neither so heavy nor so lonely.


	7. Chapter 7

The kettle has already boiled through twice when there’s a thud and a muffled, but vicious, curse from upstairs.  Win swallows back her first instinct to call out to Fred, see that he’s alright, and turns back to spreading marmalade on the toast.  Nothing she’s said recently has been the right thing:  not concern, not casual comments, not even a question about young Morse.  At every turn, she’s been met with near-snarls or sharp retorts or surly silence, and it has worn her patience to the fraying point.  If Fred has hurt himself, he’s made clear, he'll sort it himself.

 

With the exception of the thumping around upstairs, there's only tense silence in the house, the same as it has been for the fortnight since Fred was discharged for convalescence at home.  Even their family dinners, usually warm evenings of light-hearted banter, have become somber and hurried, with Sam and Joan taking every available opportunity to be somewhere else as quickly as possible.

The weeks have slipped into a new normal:  the two of them alone in the same house, or Fred, at least, alone from the three of them.  With every passing day, Win catches herself getting lost more and more in memories, none of them particularly pleasant.  Finding the cardigans he’s taken to wearing (and leaving) around the house remind her of the months right after she got him back from Italy, three stone too light and a bullet in his shoulder for good measure.  Discovering the dregs of four fingers of whiskey in a tumbler on the mantle, she suddenly hears the sound of glass shattering a different fireplace, a hundred years and two houses before.  And when she checks his tobacco pouch, she sees he’s been going through the leaves at the same unholy rate he had just before they made the decision to uproot their home, their  _ lives _ , and replant in Oxford.

So, she thinks, she really shouldn’t be surprised when coming down this morning reveals a Fred passed out in his chair, bottle of whiskey by his feet.  She grits her teeth and rousts him, sending him up for a shower and a change, and sets about tidying up, forcing her mind still.  She imagines she can feel the weight of swallowed concern pressing against her breastbone, squeezing the air from her lungs and growing like a great tumor of grief and fear.   It's enough to make her fingers itch for a cigarette, and for once she doesn’t deny herself, digging into the cupboard behind the stout for her seldom-touched packet.

By the time Fred makes it down, Win has finished her cigarette, has his toast and tea on the table, and is working on frying an egg.  "Morning, Dad," she calls through, forcing her voice calm.

"Morning," she hears from the dining room, and then the creaking of his chair.  In her mind's eye, she sees his hands splay carefully into the tabletop as he sits down, and the way they twitch when he fights the urge to press them against his side.  Once she's certain he's settled, she comes in with their plates and another pot of coffee, bracing herself for another painful half-hour.

"Might get the last of the parsnips today," she says after a long while, wiping her mouth with a napkin, and frowns when Fred's attention has to be dragged from his plate.

He blinks at her a moment, then just nods before going back to his toast.  Win watches him, assessing the way every nibble of toast is followed by two of the tiniest sips of tea.  "Are you---"  She bites back the end of a question about the pain he is very obviously feeling, and changes midcourse.  "Are you going to finish the silver?"  Even as she asks, she's winces at her tone, sharpened knife-edge thin on the whetstone of Fred’s mental absence.

Not that he notices.  "If you like.”  There is so little vigor from him, it seems he's barely awake.  Then, he blinks back to himself and gives her a short, sharpish nod.  "I will, Win."

Her eyebrows draw together briefly and a tightness grows in her jaw, but she only rises to clear the table before starting off on the day’s chores.  Fred, it seems, has no such compunction, and grows increasingly vocal and frustrated as the day progresses, first grumbling at the sink, then at the gutters, and finally cursing at the broken gate in the back garden.

Through it all, she does her best to be understanding, to be patient, to be there for him.  But she is no saint, never claimed to be, and things come to a head in the way they usually do:  like the arrival of the rainclouds you’ve been watching gather on the horizon for months of drought.

The first sign is in the sitting room, where Fred sits in his chair, morosely packing his pipe.  He’s been by turns viciously surly and determinedly silent, but this current level of preoccupation is something new.  Win watches him fill his pipe three times, counts the leaves spilling out from the bowl unheeded, and feels the knot in her stomach tighten.   _ Tea _ , she thinks, and escapes to the kitchen, soothing her nerves with the familiar routines.  To Fred's cup, she adds a bit more sugar than usual, and places two bourbons on the plate before bringing it out to him.

"Here," she says quietly, plucking the pipe from his unresisting fingers and replacing it with the china.  Then she turns away so that she can pretend she just hasn't heard his customary "Thank you, love," rather than face the empty silence where his kindnesses should be.   


When the pipe is emptied and set back into its customary place on the mantel, she hesitates, then settles on the arm of Fred's chair, draping her arm over his shoulders and resting her head on his.  It's not often they are this affectionate, but some part of her feels a need for closeness, for giving comfort.  A silence falls, stretches, enfolds them.  She presses a kiss to the top of her husband's head, and, desperate to soothe whatever it is that has him so tied up, murmurs "What is it, Fred?"   


He hesitates, and she’s startled to feel him lean ever so slightly into her side.  Finally, in a voice worn thin with fatigue and pain that he’s clearly trying to cover with humor, "Thinking about opening a shop.  Tobacco, maybe.  Or a garden centre.”

Her first instinct is to deflect the joke, strike right at the heart of what is hurting him, but she doesn’t.  Instead, she forces herself to still for a moment, to weigh the tension in his shoulders against the heaviness of his words.  With another kiss to the top of his head, she says only “If you like.  In addition to your work at the station?”

There’s another hesitation as Fred fiddles uncharacteristically with the plate in his hands.  Win can see the tiniest of tremors in his hands, shallow ripples in his tea.  “Might not have a choice,” he says eventually, voice dropping to that forced evenness it gets when he’s trying to keep himself from showing his hand.

Win ponders that a moment. thumb sweeping over his shoulder, the junction of his neck.   _ Do you really think not? _ she wants to ask, but hesitates.   _ No.  Best to not even entertain the thought.  _  Fred needs to be a copper; he’s too tangled in it to extricate himself and be happy.

Instead, she swipes her thumb up the tendon in his neck gently, and presses another kiss to his hair.  “Best cross that bridge if we come to it,” she says, leaning a bit on the  _ we _ .  “No point in borrowing trouble.”

“Best plan for the future now,” he rejoins.  “So we’re not caught on the hop.”

“The doctors predict a full recovery,” Win reminds him.  “You’re just a bit unsteady now.  It won’t last.” 

He holds in a sigh, which she registers through the tensing of his shoulders, the muscles in his neck, the tendon in his jaw.  “And if it does?” he asks.  “If I’m still  _ unsteady _ in a month, in two, in a year?  What then?”  Another stifled  _ something. _

Win considers him a moment, evaluating him in a way she hasn’t had to in years.  Finally, hedging a bit, she says “You weren’t responsible, Fred.  You didn’t  _ cause _ the accident.”  

She knows she’s guessed correctly when he goes very still, holding himself in some tableau of guilt that only she can decipher.   Gently, she takes up the slow sweep of her thumb up his neck again.  “It was an accident.  No one’s blaming you.”

A long silence, as he tenses under her hands.  “Well,” he says finally.  “ _ No one  _ was there, were they?”

“Sergeant Jakes was,” Win tells him.  “Morse was.  And neither of them blame you.”   


“They wouldn’t,” he says.  “Not to you.  Nor to Mr. Bright.  They’re loyal like that.”

And she hears, as clearly as if he’d said it out loud  _ the damn fools _ .  “Fred,” she says patiently.  “Morse has been around twice since you were released.  Do you think he’d show up if he blamed you in  _ any way _ for what happened?”

Fred is silent for a moment, then stands abruptly, holding his cup and plate out to her.  “I can fix the oven tonight,” he says.  “Have it ready for morning.”  It’s as clear a dismissal as he’s ever given her, and she takes it the same way she has all the others.

Her hands don’t even reach for the cup, settling instead inside the pockets of her cardigan.  Squaring her shoulders, she looks up at him.  “There’s work needs doing, Fred,” she says seriously.  “Needs doing by  _ you _ .  Now’s not the time to wallow.”

He locks eyes with her, and she can practically  _ see  _ the weighing in the dark depths.  Finally he nods once, sharply, and when he holds out the plate again, she takes it.  As she turns to let him pass, she rests a hand on his forearm, stilling him for a moment.  “The station needs you, Inspector Thursday,” she says, and leans up to kiss his cheek.  And then, in an attempt at levity, “And I need you less underfoot, understand.”

For a long, long moment, Fred looks at her.  “What would I do without you?” he asks quietly, and bends to kiss her cheek.

“Smoke more, drink more, brood more,” she says, smiling, and pushes his shoulder gently.  “Go on.  My oven needs fixing.”

He gives her a jaunty salute and turns back to the work, leaving Win to snatch a measure of pride from the newfound looseness to his shoulders, the uncurling of his fingers, the spark of something in his eye.

_ Once more into the breech _ , she thinks, watching him.   _ Once more _ .


	8. DVD Extra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucyemers asked on Tumblr for a scene during. I tried to oblige.

His face is clean, but mud clings to the hair at his temples, fake coloring just a shade redder than his actual hair was when he was younger. Her fingers flutter over the the laceration on his forehead, only just barely not touching the mottled skin. With practiced eyes, she takes in the pallor to his face, the tiny shivers that wrack his frame in spite of the blankets draped across him and bundled at his feet, the unnatural stillness to his sleep that speaks of drugged exhaustion. 

“Oh, _Fred_ ,” she breathes, and leans forward to brush the barest of kisses to his cheekbone. His skin is cold, and if she closes her eyes, she can’t help but imagine him in another setting altogether: silver slabs and tiled walls and the creeping, pervasive reek of formaldehyde. 

Her hands haven’t forgotten old motions, and she finds herself resettling the blankets almost without thinking about it as she pulls back. Fred doesn’t move an inch, just lays there, stiller than she’s seen him in...two decades, really, so she just pulls a chair over from against the wall and slips her hand into his carefully, chin lifted and gaze fixed on his chest. And she waits.


End file.
